by Joel Brown, DCHS President

This morning, as I’ve done every Fourth of July morning for the last decade or so, I read Frederick Douglass’s “What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?” speech, a sobering reflection and reminder that freedom in America has not always been universally shared and known, then even as now. Invited to speak in 1852 at an Independence Day celebration at Corinthian Hall in Rochester, New York, Douglass began by praising the ideals of the Declaration of Independence and its architects for their commitment to “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” “But,” as Douglass would go on to say, “such is not the state of the case. I say it with a sad sense of the disparity between us. I am not included within the pale of this glorious anniversary! Your high independence only reveals the immeasurable distance between us. The blessings in which you, this day, rejoice are not enjoyed in common. The rich inheritance of justice, liberty, prosperity, and independence, bequeathed by your fathers, is shared by you, not by me. The sunlight that brought light and healing to you, has brought stripes and death to me. This Fourth of July is yours, not mine. You may rejoice, I must mourn.”

Now, by returning to Douglass every Fourth of July, I don’t want you to hear me saying that this holiday should only be a day of mourning. Not at all! We can celebrate. In fact, I love to celebrate the Fourth of July. If you drive by my house today, you’ll see an American flag flying at the entrance of our driveway. You’ll see that we’ve invited several families over to help us celebrate: hot dogs and hamburgers on the grill, kids roasting marshmallows over the fire for s’mores, sparklers and fireworks at dusk, etc. We celebrate the Fourth with the best of them. The problem is not celebrating Independence Day, remembering the ideals and aspirations of the Declaration of Independence, remembering the costs of freedom, and remembering our best efforts to achieve and preserve freedom and justice for all. The problem is what we forget in the midst of our celebrations.

As we celebrate the birth of our nation (for those of us who are Americans), it is easy to forget the kinds of violence, hatred, and exclusion that Douglass points to in his speech. In the name of freedom, the United States has enacted racial violence, terror, and oppression among others who lived within its borders, whether by force or by choice. We, especially White Americans, are quick to forget the sins of our nation against its own—African Americans, Native Americans, and Japanese Americans, to name a few—as we celebrate the Fourth of July. And in forgetting that past, we perpetuate that violence into the present. White anxiety about our memory of racial violence leads us to suppress that memory—to forget. We celebrate to remember, but also very much celebrate to forget, to repress the memory of that violence.

I feel as though I would not be doing my duty as an American religious historian if I did not note the role that Christianity has played in our collective forgetfulness. As John Corrigan has shown in his book, The Feeling of Forgetting: Christianity, Race, and Violence in America (UChicago Press, 2023), Christianity is about forgetting just as much as it is about remembering. Christian history is filled with movements, prayers, ritual practices, and doctrines meant to erase the past. As Corrigan states, “The original sin of Adam and Eve is rinsed from the soul in Catholic baptism. The old self is deleted and the new one reborn in Protestant evangelical conversion. Fasting forgets food. Devotional silence forgets words. Saving blood washes away the soul’s memory of sins. The eschatological future negates the psychological past. Sermonists beseech congregations to forgive and forget, and, especially, to forget one’s own failings. God himself forgets, and that is a good thing” (1). Just as Christianity is about remembering (e.g., catechism, confessions, religious calendars, rituals of remembrance like the Eucharist/communion), it also has a full repertoire of practices of forgetting. And, as Corrigan skillfully demonstrates in his study, “Christianity has played an important role in [the repression of memories of racial violence] by promoting forgetting as religious practice. In White performances of anger about race matters, Christianity often is strongly present, not only implicitly—because it has fostered repression of memory of perpetration—but because it sometimes also has explicitly legitimated that perpetration” (10).

Recently there has been a great deal of good scholarship on (White) Christian nationalism, which has centered “restoration” and “remembrance” in the ideology and lived practice of Christian nationalists. As much as there is truth in these findings, practices of forgetting have been critical as well, and I would even venture to suggest that the practices of forgetting have been especially effective among those of us within mainline Protestantism. In their recent book, Baptizing America: How Mainline Protestants Helped Build Christian Nationalism (Chalice Press, 2024), Beau Underwood and Brian Kaylor remind us that Christian nationalism is not exclusive to conservative and evangelical Christians. Mainline Protestants have been involved in the construction and maintenance of Christian nationalism, even if we don’t realize it, or we perhaps have forgotten it.

Christian practices of forgetting have proven useful in repressing our memories of racial violence in the United States, even if sometimes we forget that we forget. This Fourth of July, I encourage you to celebrate our nation’s birth, to recount its achievements and best efforts to live up to the ideals of the Declaration of Independence. But, in celebrating, remember that we are prone to forget the hard truths of our past. As much as ever, we need to remember that we forget: We must remember that we forget the history of racial violence in this nation. We must remember that we forget that the United States is not a “Christian nation.” In remembering and confessing these hard truths, I believe we might discover hope and find ourselves better equipped to move forward into the good future of God’s imagining, and that is certainly something worthy of celebration.

I leave you with the conclusion of Douglass’s speech:

“…Allow me to say, in conclusion, notwithstanding the dark picture I have this day presented, of the state of the nation, I do not despair of this country. There are forces in operation which must inevitably work the downfall of slavery. “The arm of the Lord is not shortened,” and the doom of slavery is certain. I, therefore, leave off where I began, with hope. While drawing encouragement from “the Declaration of Independence,” the great principles it contains, and the genius of American Institutions, my spirit is also cheered by the obvious tendencies of the age. Nations do not now stand in the same relation to each other that they did ages ago. No nation can now shut itself up from the surrounding world and trot round in the same old path of its fathers without interference. The time was when such could be done. Long established customs of hurtful character could formerly fence themselves in, and do their evil work with social impunity. Knowledge was then confined and enjoyed by the privileged few, and the multitude walked on in mental darkness. But a change has now come over the affairs of mankind. Walled cities and empires have become unfashionable. The arm of commerce has borne away the gates of the strong city. Intelligence is penetrating the darkest corners of the globe. It makes its pathway over and under the sea, as well as on the earth. Wind, steam, and lightning are its chartered agents. Oceans no longer divide, but link nations together. From Boston to London is now a holiday excursion. Space is comparatively annihilated. — Thoughts expressed on one side of the Atlantic are distinctly heard on the other.”

“The far off and almost fabulous Pacific rolls in grandeur at our feet. The Celestial Empire, the mystery of ages, is being solved. The fiat of the Almighty, “Let there be Light,” has not yet spent its force. No abuse, no outrage whether in taste, sport or avarice, can now hide itself from the all-pervading light. The iron shoe, and crippled foot of China must be seen in contrast with nature. Africa must rise and put on her yet unwoven garment. ‘Ethiopia, shall, stretch. out her hand unto God.” In the fervent aspirations of William Lloyd Garrison, I say, and let every heart join in saying it:

God speed the year of jubilee
The wide world o’er!
When from their galling chains set free,
Th’ oppress’d shall vilely bend the knee,
And wear the yoke of tyranny
Like brutes no more.
That year will come, and freedom’s reign, 
To man his plundered rights again
Restore.

God speed the day when human blood 
Shall cease to flow!
In every clime be understood,
The claims of human brotherhood,
And each return for evil, good,
Not blow for blow;
That day will come all feuds to end,
And change into a faithful friend
Each foe.

God speed the hour, the glorious hour, 
When none on earth
Shall exercise a lordly power,
Nor in a tyrant’s presence cower;
But to all manhood’s stature tower,
By equal birth!
That hour will come, to each, to all,
And from his Prison-house, to thrall
Go forth.

Until that year, day, hour, arrive,
With head, and heart, and hand I’ll strive, 
To break the rod, and rend the gyve,
The spoiler of his prey deprive —
So witness Heaven!
And never from my chosen post,
Whate’er the peril or the cost,
Be driven.